Familiarity - Home
26th August 2017
Familiarity - 26th August 2017
I have recently felt much more at ease as I have come to believe I am now, at last, at home. It is not perfect, far too many people and far too much commercialisation for a National Park, but it is a place I am starting to understand and it ‘feels’ like home. The place and people coerce, test, beguile and confuse me, whilst opening up their arms to warmly embrace me. I have, therefore (and pardon the oxymoron) come to an almost unconscious realisation that this is my home.
Therefore, I was not expecting how I felt after a recent experience to my parental home.
Following a long abscence I headed back to where I was born and where I have spent the majority of my life. This is not only a place filled with familiar faces, but also a landscape I know instinctively as I have walked its fields and gentle rolling hills for more than 50 years. However, I had now moved on, I was following my dream, looking to higher, wilder and more distant hills. I had now found a home that embraced, sustained and gave me security, I had even found love.
However, this recent visit threw all my understanding of ‘home’ into freefall.
What I was expecting was to feel distant to the places I knew from the past as my connection was now broken. I now had a new home so the landscape of my youth would feel removed and less relevant. However, I was shocked by the effects my old stomping ground had on me. The universe came into sharper focus, a stronger contrast between land/sky - wood/hill and everything seemed more immediate, accessible and more congruous than I had expected.
Where I anticipated nothing more than a hazy feeling of nostalgia, in contrast, my senses were hit with a clear, deep sense of recognition and I sensed my place within the landscape. This land was not only familiar, but like family.
So what is going on here? My new home is still home and I love being here, but I am now confused that something else is happening. Is it my subconscious reacting to subtle ques and inputs that my ego, agenda filled consciousness is filtering out?
Therefore, I needed to look into this more, not for just academic reasoning, but also for my eternal wellbeing and sanity. I needed to understand what home means for me and therefore, where I might find it. Is it home or just the familiarity that makes me feel as I do, or are these two ideas one and the same?
A quick look at the dictionary provides me with an interesting view on the meaning, origins and connection of the words ‘familiarity’ and ‘home’. Maybe if I looked into this connection it might help me better understand what is going on (?) So, let's see where this goes...............
One set of meanings for ‘Familiar’ is confidential and intimate, that suggests a long association between persons or place. It is clear I have a long association with my old and new homes. One I grew up in, playing in it, walking across it, the other I immersed myself at every opportunity, traveling fortnightly as I would fight against the exodus of weekend traffic from the South East of England.
In both places I have earnt my stripes as I have both toiled and sweated in both locations.
Another nuance of ‘Familiar’ points to an atmosphere of confidentiality and a sense of mutual trust (extending to the sharing of confidences and secrets: like a confidential adviser). Therefore, perhaps the familar is a companion like a friend or sibling (?)
The landscapes I travel through, and in particular my old and new home ‘talk’ to me: or at least I talk to them and I (semi) believe ‘they’ (note I do not use the inanimate pronoun ‘it’ as I recognise i immerse my humanity into my view of the world) listens and talks back. I regularly talk, comment, sometimes shout at the air if a frustration is being considered, as I wander around my landscape. Like John Clare, perhaps, I seek harmony and meaning in amongst the familiarity of the landscape, and it seems the countryside hears me and provides friendly advice. This might be due, as Wainwright suggested:
“.... the joys of a walk over country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? ........ Your thoughts are simple, in tune with your surroundings; the complicated problems you brought with you..... are smoothed away”
Both my homes, old and new have provided this solace and support over the years. In both homes I have sought comfort and healing. In both homes I have used the landscapes as a sanctuary, an escape and a balm to help untrouble the mind and body. It is the familiarity that starts to imbed the feeling and understanding of this place being ‘home’.
Familiarity also contains the concept of Intimate, which suggests close acquaintance or connectiion. This might be based on a dimension where there is mutual interest, sympathy, or affection. The dictionary expands with the example....."intimate, very friendly, on a family footing”.
Here we see the origins of the meaning between familiarity and family closing in. Closer these meanings converge the nearer, maybe, I might find some solution, or at least understanding for my quandary.
Home is familiar - it is family! So perhaps I was just warmly embraced by a close, loving family member when I returned to my old stomping ground? Just maybe both places are home, as both, therefore equally important to me. However, just like the Swallow that migrates between two contrasting landscapes, the plains of Africa to an eave in Cumbria, we are all eternally seeking to understand what is and where is home(?)
Postscript:
Familiarity’s Latin origins derive from the word ‘famulus’ which also has the meaning of ‘servant’ ................who is the servant and who is the master in this home/family set-up is yet to be understood.
Million Miles Away (Rory Gallagher)
“This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown?
The joint is jumpin' all around me,
And my mood is really not in style,
Right now the blues flock to surround me,
But I'll break out after a while.
Yes I'm a million miles away,
I'm a million miles away,
I'm sailing like a driftwood,
On a windy bay,
On a windy bay.
I'm a million miles away,
I'm a million miles away”
I have recently felt much more at ease as I have come to believe I am now, at last, at home. It is not perfect, far too many people and far too much commercialisation for a National Park, but it is a place I am starting to understand and it ‘feels’ like home. The place and people coerce, test, beguile and confuse me, whilst opening up their arms to warmly embrace me. I have, therefore (and pardon the oxymoron) come to an almost unconscious realisation that this is my home.
Therefore, I was not expecting how I felt after a recent experience to my parental home.
Following a long abscence I headed back to where I was born and where I have spent the majority of my life. This is not only a place filled with familiar faces, but also a landscape I know instinctively as I have walked its fields and gentle rolling hills for more than 50 years. However, I had now moved on, I was following my dream, looking to higher, wilder and more distant hills. I had now found a home that embraced, sustained and gave me security, I had even found love.
However, this recent visit threw all my understanding of ‘home’ into freefall.
What I was expecting was to feel distant to the places I knew from the past as my connection was now broken. I now had a new home so the landscape of my youth would feel removed and less relevant. However, I was shocked by the effects my old stomping ground had on me. The universe came into sharper focus, a stronger contrast between land/sky - wood/hill and everything seemed more immediate, accessible and more congruous than I had expected.
Where I anticipated nothing more than a hazy feeling of nostalgia, in contrast, my senses were hit with a clear, deep sense of recognition and I sensed my place within the landscape. This land was not only familiar, but like family.
So what is going on here? My new home is still home and I love being here, but I am now confused that something else is happening. Is it my subconscious reacting to subtle ques and inputs that my ego, agenda filled consciousness is filtering out?
Therefore, I needed to look into this more, not for just academic reasoning, but also for my eternal wellbeing and sanity. I needed to understand what home means for me and therefore, where I might find it. Is it home or just the familiarity that makes me feel as I do, or are these two ideas one and the same?
A quick look at the dictionary provides me with an interesting view on the meaning, origins and connection of the words ‘familiarity’ and ‘home’. Maybe if I looked into this connection it might help me better understand what is going on (?) So, let's see where this goes...............
One set of meanings for ‘Familiar’ is confidential and intimate, that suggests a long association between persons or place. It is clear I have a long association with my old and new homes. One I grew up in, playing in it, walking across it, the other I immersed myself at every opportunity, traveling fortnightly as I would fight against the exodus of weekend traffic from the South East of England.
In both places I have earnt my stripes as I have both toiled and sweated in both locations.
Another nuance of ‘Familiar’ points to an atmosphere of confidentiality and a sense of mutual trust (extending to the sharing of confidences and secrets: like a confidential adviser). Therefore, perhaps the familar is a companion like a friend or sibling (?)
The landscapes I travel through, and in particular my old and new home ‘talk’ to me: or at least I talk to them and I (semi) believe ‘they’ (note I do not use the inanimate pronoun ‘it’ as I recognise i immerse my humanity into my view of the world) listens and talks back. I regularly talk, comment, sometimes shout at the air if a frustration is being considered, as I wander around my landscape. Like John Clare, perhaps, I seek harmony and meaning in amongst the familiarity of the landscape, and it seems the countryside hears me and provides friendly advice. This might be due, as Wainwright suggested:
“.... the joys of a walk over country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? ........ Your thoughts are simple, in tune with your surroundings; the complicated problems you brought with you..... are smoothed away”
Both my homes, old and new have provided this solace and support over the years. In both homes I have sought comfort and healing. In both homes I have used the landscapes as a sanctuary, an escape and a balm to help untrouble the mind and body. It is the familiarity that starts to imbed the feeling and understanding of this place being ‘home’.
Familiarity also contains the concept of Intimate, which suggests close acquaintance or connectiion. This might be based on a dimension where there is mutual interest, sympathy, or affection. The dictionary expands with the example....."intimate, very friendly, on a family footing”.
Here we see the origins of the meaning between familiarity and family closing in. Closer these meanings converge the nearer, maybe, I might find some solution, or at least understanding for my quandary.
Home is familiar - it is family! So perhaps I was just warmly embraced by a close, loving family member when I returned to my old stomping ground? Just maybe both places are home, as both, therefore equally important to me. However, just like the Swallow that migrates between two contrasting landscapes, the plains of Africa to an eave in Cumbria, we are all eternally seeking to understand what is and where is home(?)
Postscript:
Familiarity’s Latin origins derive from the word ‘famulus’ which also has the meaning of ‘servant’ ................who is the servant and who is the master in this home/family set-up is yet to be understood.
Million Miles Away (Rory Gallagher)
“This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown?
The joint is jumpin' all around me,
And my mood is really not in style,
Right now the blues flock to surround me,
But I'll break out after a while.
Yes I'm a million miles away,
I'm a million miles away,
I'm sailing like a driftwood,
On a windy bay,
On a windy bay.
I'm a million miles away,
I'm a million miles away”